Just 5 days before Kim Jong Il passed away, we had finalized our programs for 2012 with our North Korean partners. A few days after Kim Jong Il’s passing, we got in touch with our North Korean partners and they still expect us to proceed with programs for 2012. We see in this transition period an important opportunity to broaden the impact of our work through dialogue with an emerging generation of leaders. Our core mission remains the same, although we will need to expand fundraising as we ramp up our efforts for this critical period.

After reviewing previous and current programs, we decided that we will continue to focus on a rigorous selection process to pick exceptional young North Koreans for exceptional learning opportunities.

In addition, we intend to identify areas of potential policy changes in partnership with North Koreans and focus on training in those areas. This will allow us to bring training closer to actual implementation of knowledge. We also decided that a major long-term emphasis should be to build cross-institutional linkages and in developing institutions that can facilitate these linkages. This follows feedback from North Koreans who observed that economic-policies in North Korea can benefit greatly from greater communication and coordination among economic agencies.